U.S. shrugs off Baghdad's threats of suicide blasts

April 01, 2003|By Cam Simpson, Washington Bureau.

WASHINGTON — While concerned about isolated attacks, U.S. officials said Monday that there is no evidence supporting Iraqi claims that thousands of suicide bombers from other Arab countries are in Iraq preparing to unleash widespread assaults against U.S. forces.

Despite anti-American anger in the streets of the Middle East that could generate new recruits for suicide missions, these officials added, Iraq's borders and roadways are secure enough that it would be difficult for Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to import large numbers of new operatives.

And, intelligence officials contend, there are no indications yet that organized Islamic extremist groups that routinely deploy suicide bombers--from the Palestinian territories or Lebanon--are prepared to join the fight in Iraq, despite some of their recent rhetoric.

Fears of suicide attacks were heightened after an Iraqi soldier posing as a cabdriver detonated a car bomb Saturday that killed four U.S. soldiers at a checkpoint outside Najaf, about 100 miles south of Baghdad.

The bombing was followed by warnings from Iraqi officials that the attack was just the beginning of a new campaign--and that 4,000 volunteers from almost two dozen Arab countries were ready to launch more suicide missions.

"They have left their countries, they have left their families behind, they have left their jobs and they have come to Iraq to fight in the name of God," Lt. Gen. Hazem al-Rawi, an Iraqi military spokesman, told reporters in Baghdad on Sunday. He said suicide bombers were flooding into Baghdad and had "come from all Arab countries without any exception."

Tariq Aziz, the Iraqi deputy prime minister, echoed those statements Sunday to ABC News: "The Arabs and Muslims are wholeheartedly supporting Iraq and they know that this is an unjust war."

Aziz also rejected labeling Saturday's bomber as a terrorist, saying, "When you fight an invader by whatever means available to you, you are not a terrorist, you are a hero."

Lack of experience seen

Intelligence officials in Washington, speaking on the condition of anonymity, disputed Iraqi claims about Arab suicide volunteers. They also said that while Hussein clearly has some of his own forces prepared to launch suicide attacks, such a strategy would represent a major challenge for a largely secular regime that has little experience in the past deploying suicide bombers, who often tend to be religious zealots seeking martyrdom.

One U.S. official said that while there may be some potential foreign suicide bombers already inside Iraq, claims that they number in the thousands "are greatly exaggerated."

That official and others said there is no intelligence to suggest that Hussein's regime, or people working on its behalf, tried to recruit suicide bombers into Baghdad before the start of the war.

In addition, these officials said, while some now may be prepared to join the fight from outside Iraq, it would be extremely difficult for a large number of such recruits to make it into the country now and get to Baghdad.

The massive U.S. military presence in Iraq, stepped-up border security in places such as Jordan and multiple checkpoints inside Iraq all combine to make it unlikely that any large-scale flow of recruits could get to Baghdad, officials said.

U.S. forces also cracked down on security at checkpoints after Saturday's attack.

U.S. officials also doubted claims that extremist groups with years of experience in conducting suicide missions--particularly Palestinian groups based in the occupied territories and other Islamic fundamentalist factions in Lebanon--were sending operatives into Baghdad. The Reuters news agency reported Monday that the radical Palestinian group Islamic Jihad had sent a first wave of suicide bombers into Baghdad.

One U.S. official said he did not believe Hussein has supported Palestinian groups consistently enough to merit operational support inside Iraq from their leaders.

Another U.S. official said that while intelligence agencies believe a small number of operatives from Palestinian groups could be planning attacks against Americans, they would be "working on their own, in their own manner." This official said such attacks would not likely be connected to any broader campaign or coordination from Baghdad, adding that U.S. intelligence agencies still believe Palestinian groups "have their own priorities, and this [suicide attacks inside Iraq] is not one of them."

Deserters report training

Some military deserters fleeing Iraq over the weekend said they had participated in training during recent weeks in which conscripts were taught how to ride motorcycles packed with explosives into crowds of coalition soldiers. Despite those reports, U.S. officials said they believe the threat of suicide attacks even from Iraqi soldiers is limited by Baghdad's lack of experience in employing such tactics.

Iraqi operatives traditionally have been trained to carry out sustained attacks, not suicide assaults, intelligence officials said. "They have no experience with this type of mass terrorism," one official said.